Exposure
by wneleh
Summary: Ronon has to make amends for a crime committed years before.
1. Chapter 1

Notes: This was written for the 2008 sga gen ficathon on LJ. Beta-read by Annie B.

Exposure

by Helen W.

_Shortly after S4's 'Quarantine'..._

Nothing about Anaa seemed familiar to Ronon until he saw the morro calf nibbling grass by the side of the path. White head, tan body, black tufts of hair behind its ears and on its forelegs... it was exactly the same.

Six or eight or more years ago he'd come through a gate and seen this animal's slightly older twin sleeping maybe fifty paces away. He'd slaughtered it in its sleep and eaten the meat from its shoulder raw, he'd been so hungry.

Harvesting its hide had had to wait until daylight; only then had he noticed three interlocking circles, going large to small, on its rear flank. And then there'd been a shout – a woman's voice, "What have you done!" – and without even getting a clear look at her he'd bolted to the gate's podium and dialed Xa, where the sun was so intense that nobody would be able to follow for long.

Now, years later, Ronon found his first impulse was, again, to run – make some excuse, head back to the gate and dial Atlantis. There was no reason for his whole team to be there; any one of them except maybe McKay would be perfectly safe solo on a place like Anaa. Even McKay if he'd keep his mouth shut.

There was no way he was going to run away again.

McKay, a little in front of him, paused and raised a hand. "Hold still, everyone," he said. "Do you hear ringing?"

"Yes," said Teyla. "Look there!"

A small boy was running over the hillside above the calf, jangling with every step. "There you are!" he yelled as soon as he spotted the calf. "Hey, Ma!"

At the boy's shout, the animal startled and bolted their way. Sheppard and McKay, unsurprisingly, let the thing run right past them. Figuring he'd better grab it before Teyla had a chance, Ronon blocked it with a side-step, then grabbed it around its neck. The animal stilled instantly.

"Thanks, mister!" said the child as he slipped a rope around the animal's neck. He then unhooked a small bell from his rope belt and gave it several hard shakes. "Hey, Ma! I got him!" he yelled.

The boy's mother jogged into view, her skirt raised, light shawl trailing. "Excellent, Ko!" she said. "And who else have you found?"

She quickly inspected the calf's rear quarter, nodded, then smiled at them and curtsied a greeting. Like the boy, her clothes were made of woven fabric, with the seams almost certainly machine-made, which implied a certain level of tech, or the wealth to engage in off-world trade. Their shoes, too, looked sturdy and relatively new, another sign of relative prosperity. And the woman's shawl was intricately knitted, which implied some combination of moderate wealth and leisure time.

So the society wasn't completely impoverished. Did that matter?

Teyla mirrored the woman's greeting curtsy, though she didn't sink as deep, whether out of distaste for the form or because of her belly, Ronon couldn't tell.

"We have come seeking the people of Athos," Teyla said. "We have heard that you have recently welcomed strangers?"

"Oh, yes!" the woman replied. She went on to say that, no, she did not know where this new group of migrants, numbering three or four hundred, had come from; and the name 'Athos' meant nothing to her, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; and if they wanted to walk to the land the newcomers had been allocated, down on the shore of Lake Eadm, they would have to be prepared to ford the River Balkne, utilize the rope bridge over the Glaz Gorge, and pass through, or circle around, Red Bug Swamp.

"Red Bug?" McKay asked.

"Ah, voracious things!" said the woman. "They're the main reason we keep to the plain, and the shores of the River Vel. But if the newcomers stay to the far shore of Lake Eadm they'll be fine. It's just the getting to and from it that's difficult. A two-day's walk at least, and impossible by morro cart or riding ryshans because of the roughness of the terrain."

Sheppard and McKay were both scratching their arms; it seemed as good a time as any to interrupt. "Uh, ma'am?" he started.

"Call me Meah, and my son is Ko," she replied, smiling like she was enjoying perturbing his teammates.

"Do you, uh, brand your animals here?"

"Yes, of course," she answered.

"Don't you keep them penned? Or have shepherds?"

"Yes, but they have a knack for escaping; in fact, this little fellow got away yesterday. And we haven't even marked him yet; waiting for the new greater moon, so we can have the full ceremony. It'll be his first new moon since his weaning. But they always make their way home."

"What's his brand going to be?"

"The three circles of the moons, greater to lesser, joined," she said. "My clan's symbol since before the culling of the eighth year of King Mashana's grandfather's grandmother's rule." She gave him a smile Ronon supposed she usually saved for the village idiot, then resumed ignoring him in favor of directing more words and hand-waves at Sheppard, McKay, and Teyla, now about the various times the bridge over the Glaz Gorge had failed.

There was a certain humor to it, but since there was no way they'd be doing the trip on foot it was pretty pointless, so he cleared this throat.

"Can't it wait, Dex?" Sheppard asked.

"Well, see, I, um, think I killed one of their animals," he said. He turned to Meah. "Your animals."

The woman took a step back and looked around as if she expected there to be a corpse on the hillside.

"Years ago," he hurried to explain. "I didn't know it wasn't wild. It was dark when I killed it and I was…"

He stopped himself. No excuses. "I'd like to pay someone back. I, um, I have things to give in trade now. Or some currency that you might be able to use."

* * *

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of," McKay whispered – well, for McKay, it was a whisper, Ronon supposed - as they walked with Meah and her son to her family's homestead.

"The most ridiculous thing _I've_ ever heard is you mooing to that animal," said Sheppard.

"Tell me _you_ don't want to," said McKay, still keeping his voice low.

"So you were, um, attempting to imitate the calf just now?" Teyla asked. "How could you possibly do so? It has been silent." She paused and smiled. "Perhaps you _should_ imitate it."

"Ha ha, very funny," said McKay. "Colonel, why are we following them home?"

"Well, Meah says she lives with a bunch of sisters and cousins and aunts. Seems like talking to them might get us intel less painfully than our usual bar fight."

"I concur," said Teyla. "And, often information obtained in taverns is not as reliable as I would wish."

"Okay, okay, we'll go talk to the nice natives. But are we going to really let Ronon keep on, what should we call it, spontaneously confessing?"

Ronon couldn't keep himself from smiling. "You going to stop me?"

"I've heard it's good for the soul," said Sheppard. "Didn't you go to Sunday School, Rodney?"

"Of course not," said McKay. "What I'm getting at is, if we're going to start spouting all of our sins… I just don't think that sets a good precedent."

"As in," Sheppard said, "You don't want to know the local penalty for destroying a solar system."

"Not so loud!" said McKay. "But, well, to put it bluntly, yes. I mean, think about it. We've all screwed up a thousand different ways…"

"We have?" asked Teyla.

"Well, let me think – yes, unprotected sex, there you go," said McKay.

That had to cross some line in every culture, even McKay's. Teyla's composure, however, didn't vary. "This pregnancy, while not planned, is welcomed," she said. "I believe it is a great gift."

"Well, um, yes, of course," McKay stammered; his loss of verbal momentum lasted about five seconds before he continued, "Okay, speaking just for the expedition, and the caveman here… we've made some pretty big Freshman errors, and the only way to possibly right them is to work our tails off, not throw ourselves on the mercy of stone-age farmers."

"I don't think there _were_ stone-age farmers," said Sheppard.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure there were," said McKay. "Yes, of course there were."

Sheppard shrugged, then matched his stride with Ronon's. "My beef," he began, then gave a low snort. "My _issue_ is that you didn't give me a heads-up before you spoke to Meah."

"Sorry," said Ronon.

"Teyla, what do you think?" asked McKay. "Is he being an idiot, or what?"

"It's not my habit to critique the actions of my friends publicly," she said.

Ronon matched his stride to hers. "I thought you'd understand," he said quietly.

"I do, I believe," said Teyla. "But our priorities are different."

Because Teyla really thought that her people were still alive, Ronon realized. She'd grown up with cullings, not complete destruction.

Ronon knew Teyla had her reasons for maintaining hope, but the Athosian people had been dead to him since the day Teyla and Keller had discovered their disappearance. Dead and mourned.

How did Teyla live with knowing that they were all just indulging her?

It didn't take long to reach the turn-off for Meah's family's property – a fork in the road that passed immediately under a wooden arch, from which hung a small placard bearing three joined circles, large to small. The exact mark of that morro calf. This was really the place.

Ko and his charge were sent off to wherever the stock was penned, and Ronon and his team followed Meah under a stone archway into a courtyard of green grass and flowering shrubs, bordered on two sides by a low wood-and-brick building. She told them to wait, then went to the building's entranceway and opened a wooden door, revealing a compartment that contained maybe ten metal bells. She removed several and started to sound them, the flicks of her wrist showing what was probably a lifetime of practice.

This, apparently, was how you summoned your kin on Anaa, because men and women of all ages, along with a few children, started to emerge from the building and enter through the archway. They seemed more curious than alarmed, so presumably Meah had conveyed both urgency and a lack of immediate danger.

As they arrived, Meah's people nodded greetings to Ronon and his teammates, then settled into what seemed to be customary positions: sitting on the low stone wall which wove through the courtyard, standing under one of several larger shade trees, leaning against the building's wall. Though they exchanged brief pleasantries with each other, none spoke to them; Ronon supposed it was their custom to get clan meetings started and over as quickly as possible so that everyone could get back to work. Well, that was absolutely fine with him.

It took surprisingly little time for the yard to fill; twenty-two adults and teens total, dressed for farming or household chores or other sorts of manual work, and a couple of babies and very young kids. None carried themselves like they'd been trained to use their bodies to do anything more than farm work; and none were obviously armed with more than whatever tools they'd been carrying when Meah had rung the bells.

Meah and an elderly woman who'd joined her at the center of the courtyard did a quick headcount. They conferred quietly for a moment or two more, and then Meah pulled a small bell from her pocket and rang it three times. The murmuring abruptly stopped.

"Thanks, everyone, for coming so quickly. I see we're missing Brother Obben and Brother Asz – I'm assuming they are in town? And Cousin Jeeliza was taking the children over at the Peaza farmstead, I believe."

"Obben's back, but was going to be working a team down on the lower acres," someone said.

Meah nodded. "That's fine. Enough of us are here.

"Family, I have gathered you this mid-morning on behalf of these visitors. They are seeking a group of refugees who may include their kin. The Athosians, this group calls itself, and its leader is a man called Halling. Does any of this ring the high bell of recognition? Did anyone have any dealings with that new group, the one which the Council and King deeded the far shore of Lake Eadm to?"

"I heard they were from Hoff," said an older woman.

"No, I'd have known if they were," said a mostly-grown girl.

"I would have, also," said Meah.

"Not if they were from, say, the southern continent," said the older woman. "They identify more by tribe. Identified, I guess."

"Yes, but…" began another woman; Meah rang the little bell again.

Teyla stepped forward. "I understand the new settlers number several hundred. My people, the Athosians, would make up only a part of it."

Meah looked around at her relatives, then turned back to Teyla. "I'm sorry. But none of us seem to be able to help you," she said.

There was a general murmur of agreement, and Teyla let slip a sigh so soft Ronon suspected only he heard it.

Meah turned back to her relatives. "Well, that's the first reason I rang the bells of assembly and inquiry," she said. "There's a second reason, though. This man," and she gestured toward Ronon, "believes that, perhaps a dozen circums of the sun ago, he killed a morro calf bearing our family brand, near the ring of the ancestors. He fed off it, and fled when he was discovered. Does this ring a high bell with anyone? I was probably on Hoff, at school…"

There was shuffling among the assembly, and one man reached for his hammer.

"I take it the answer's yes," McKay commented softly.

"Thank you, Doctor Obvious," said Sheppard.

"Like he says," said a woman seated near them. "We lost a calf to raiders during the last year of the rule of Queen Bolzom. It was a strong, tan thing, much like Meah's Ko's lesson calf. It was of Marcyl's herd."

"Not raiders," said Ronon. "Just me. Someone, uh, saw me…"

"That would have been Marcyl," said the woman. "Taken by Wraith right before last year's harvest."

"I'm sorry," said Ronon. "Um, sorry for everything. I'd like to make it right. I'd like to know how."

"Since our kinswoman Marcyl was first-owner, you owe restitution to Marcyl's son Asz, her heir; he's at market right now," said the older woman who had conferred with Meah before she'd addressed the group. "I can assure you he will abide by our decisions on this matter. We can set a form of restitution now, and you can appeal to the Council and the King if you feel this is unfair.

"However," and she now approached them, "that cannot be the end of the matter. On Anaa, we share freely, and do not hide away what is ours. But this system cannot work if property ownership, including animal ownership, is not, ultimately, respected. You must be punished for what you did, no matter your reason or any remorse you may feel now."

Sheppard stepped forward. "I'm his commanding officer. I'll see that he's punished when we return home."

"No, Sheppard," said Ronon.

"Let's at least make sure they don't plan to hang you, or chop off a hand, or something," said McKay.

Teyla shifted uncomfortably beside him, probably still contemplating wringing his neck for holding them all up by doing this, and Sheppard's and McKay's necks for acting like the local justice system was an opt-in. True, he'd probably skip out on a dismembering, but some things just went over better if you didn't actually say them.

"Don't worry, you'll emerge intact," said Meah. "Probably."

TBC

All feedback welcomed, here or to helenw at murphnet dot org.


	2. Chapter 2

Deciding upon the form restitution was to take turned out to be pretty straightforward. Using local law and custom as their guide, the elders of the family determined that Ronon owed the calf's first-owner's heir, payable to the family as a whole since they lived communally, protein-rich food containing three times the calories the calf's meat would have provided as an adult, and twice its surface area of leather.

Ronon left the exact composition of the payment to Teyla. She muttered, "You _will_ pay," then convinced the elders of Meah's family to accept fish, and some of the synthetic material and thread that they could produce easily on Atlantis (without, of course, being too specific as to where they'd get it).

It was decided that Ronon would turn himself over to the local constabulary, accompanied by Meah and several of her male kin, while the rest of his team returned to Atlantis to obtain a puddle jumper and the goods. After delivering the restitution, someone (and there was no shortage of volunteers) would direct them to where the new settlers were.

It was, frankly, a relief when they parted on the path, Sheppard, McKay, and Teyla heading back to the stargate, and he, Meah, and her kinsmen boarding a morro-drawn cart bound for the local seat of government.

The ride into town reminded Ronon of the farm country hayrides he'd done with his family and friends every year growing up. Did anyone else, anywhere else, do that? Or had that died with Sateda?

The trip took perhaps an hour, as they traveled, not much faster than he could have walked, past stands of trees and fields of grain nearly ready for harvesting. There weren't a great many people visible from the road, but he saw a fence being repaired, and someone pounding at some sort of metal monstrosity. An irrigation system? And over there several children were weeding a vegetable garden.

Nice place, Anaa.

If he hadn't killed the calf and run, would he have been tempted to stay, to see if he could hide a while in the spaces between farms? He'd done that, he didn't know how many times. When he managed to not be seen, it hadn't usually caused the local people harm.

Not usually.

The farms were replaced by closer-standing houses; then, a little ways further, they passed under a wooden arch, dissimilar only in scale to the one that had demarcated Meah's family's property. Meah brought the team of morros to a halt, reached under her seat, and brought out a mid-sized bell, which she rang three times. She turned to Ronon and the kinsmen who were accompanying them and asked, "Do you think that was loud enough?"

It seemed to be; several men came out of the nearest structure. Meah slipped from the cart and went to speak to them; Ronon couldn't hear what was being said, so concentrated on looking complacent.

The men, looking a bit bemused, gestured for him to get out of the cart. He complied immediately.

"Did you do what Meah Ahslander says? Did you kill her kin's morro calf?" the older of the two asked.

"Yes."

"You meant to do this?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I was hungry."

"You don't look hungry now," said the younger.

"It was a long time ago."

"His account matches that of my kinswoman, Marcyl, lately culled," said Meah. "We Ahslanders don't wish him ill, since he has confessed freely, but we do demand justice."

"Very well," said the older man. "Present your hands, please."

Ronon did so, and a rope was wrapped around them. Ronon forced his hands to stay together, forced his feet to stay rooted, forced his elbows and shoulders into stillness.

He could do this. They weren't going to do anything to him that he couldn't absorb and didn't deserve.

He was led down the wide, gravel street, the older man holding the end of the rope that bound his hands. All the people that hadn't been out in the fields working like they should have been seemed to be in town just to gawk at him. His being led like an animal was the best thing they'd seen all year; the best entertainment they got on this shithole of a planet. He could rip any of them apart without breaking a sweat; any of these fools.

"The king himself will adjudicate!" called Meah, who'd somehow gotten ahead of them and was bustling back. "First we have to throw you into the pit. Um, it's a bit unpleasant."

"Stand still, now," said the man leading him, and the other guard took another length of rope and bound his ankles.

And Ronon let him, through measured breaths, because if he fought with his hands bound he wasn't sure he'd be able to control his blows.

Then there were hands everywhere, six men and boys at least, pulling him down and lifting his feet and carrying him and he had to get down NOW when they dropped him and he was rolling and landing face-down in feces-tainted slop.

The pit. Great.

He rolled over and leveraged himself up onto his knees and took in his surroundings. He was in an earthen hole about two armspans across at the top, and not much deeper than he was tall. The sides were wet clay, and probably took some work to maintain.

The rim was starting to accumulate gawkers, boys mostly, but a few girls and adults too. Most looked curious, but one – a youth, who looked a lot like Meah's son – was redfaced, his hands clenched into fists.

"Hey, you Asz Ahsland?" Ronon called.

"Yes, thief!" he replied.

"I'm, um, I'm sorry," he said. "Sorry I killed you ma's morro. I didn't know it belonged to anyone."

"That calf, it was to be part of the fee for my first session of school on Hoff," said Asz. "I had to wait until after the next planting. Ma begged my uncles and aunts for currency but they said she was too careless for the risk. Losing that calf, losing our family's trust – that crushed her."

"I'm sorry," Ronon repeated.

"You think that helps?" Asz reached down behind where he was standing, then turned back and flung a clod of dirt at him. Then another and another, some of the others joining him in slinging down dirt and bits of rotted food, some wrapped around pebbles and rocks.

Ronon folded forward and closed his eyes.

* * *

The pelting stopped between one breath and the next, followed by the vibration of a jumper. Ronon rose to his knees again; a moment later, Sheppard appeared, scowling then shouting to someone out of sight, "What the hell is wrong with you people!"

"Did you get the food and cloth?" Ronon called.

"Yeah, yeah, no problem there," said Sheppard. "Already dropped off at Meah's place and accepted by her family's matriarch. Jumper smells like fish, though."

"Sorry," said Ronon, thinking that that didn't sound too bad, considering what he must smell like.

"We'll deal," said Sheppard. He looked up again, then back at Ronon. "I think your trial's about to start. You stay down there, I think."

Ronon nodded.

A moment later, a new crowd gathered around the rim, this one older and probably better armed but, Ronon hoped, with more restraint.

A man of middle age wearing a purple stole seemed to be in charge. He raised a hand and a younger man standing next to him rang two bells in unison. The others immediately quieted. "Are you Ronon Dex?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You admit to killing a Ahsland morro calf on the 7th day of the third moon of the 31st year of the reign of my mother, Queen Bolzom?"

Mother? That meant this must be King Mashana.

"I admit to killing a morro calf that bore the brand of the Ahsland clan," said Ronon. "I don't know your planet's calendar, but it was a long time ago."

"Why?"

"I was hungry, and I also had some uses for its hide."

"Why did you run?"

Telling them that he'd been a Runner would probably get him killed, so he simply said, "I was scared." It wasn't a lie.

"And why do you confess to this now?"

"Because I can. Because it's the right thing to do. And because I'm sorry."

The king looked across the pit and Ronon turned to follow his gaze. Meah, Asz, and several of their kin were there, all except Asz wearing what looked like their best clothes.

"Ahslanders," said the king, "do you accept this man's apology?"

"We do, sire," said Meah.

"The lad next to you doesn't seem to agree," said the king.

"He killed my ma's best calf, sire," said Asz. "My ma was Marcyl Ahsland, taken in the last culling."

The king nodded. "I understand your unhappiness. But I also see that you and your peers have already shown Dex your displeasure."

The man next to the king, on some sign Ronon didn't catch, began ringing one of his bells softly, letting it swing easily. The king raised his right hand and said, in the same lilting pitch as the bell, "Ronon Dex, visitor to Anaa. The crime to which you have confessed demands retribution and punishment. Retribution has been met, to the satisfaction of those whom you wronged. Punishment is a month confined. However, as your misdeed occurred prior to my reign; and in light of your free confession; I, King Mashana Sellu, sentence you to public confinement until mid-morning tomorrow. So be it."

The bell-ringing stopped and the king and most of the others departed, replaced by Sheppard. "Want to guess what public confinement is?"

"Spending the night down here?"

"Nope, stocks, in the public square."

"Stocks?"

"Wooden thing, holds you like this," and Sheppard hunched over and stuck out his hands. "You'll love it."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Ronon didn't love it.

After being hauled out of the pit by a rope hooked to his bound wrists, Ronon stood as still as he could while buckets of water were poured over his torso and legs and, when he bowed low, his head. This left him marginally cleaner but a lot colder.

The same local law types that had escorted him to the pit again took charge of him. They untied the rope around his legs, then led him a short distance across a well-trimmed lawn to what Sheppard had described as 'the stocks' – two thick posts, slit to hold two horizontal planks. Where the planks joined, three circles were cut. More symbols of Anaa's moons? No, the two outer ones were the same size.

The upper plank was raised, and Ronon then remembered Sheppard's earlier pose.

His wrists were untied – not cut, which surprised him – and he was told to bend over the lower plank, his neck above its middle semicircle and his wrists resting in the outer ones. The upper plank was then lowered and tied into place. He quickly separated his legs and experimented with ways to distribute his weight; the contraption had clearly not been designed with someone of his height in mind. Spreading his legs as wide as he could let him reduce the pressure on his back and neck, but caused him to lose body heat faster. However, unless it was extreme, he could ignore cold; an injured back would slow him if immediate action was needed. So easing pressure to his neck and spine won.

This was less filthy than the pit, at least; and instead of a circle of hostile gunk-slingers he was being left to himself, drawing only glances from people whose paths took them past. He also sensed several guards – not the original, so their shift must have ended – to his rear.

If they were anything like his original two, he could take them without even hurting them much. And the stock was probably easy to escape, with a little effort. Something built for the less-than-formidable farmers of Asaa really shouldn't be a challenge. It shouldn't. It shouldn't…

It couldn't hurt to test it a little, to see how much give there was.

He pivoted his wrists and pushed upward. Nothing budged. Bracing his legs more firmly, he tried again, now using his neck as well; again, nothing. And again…

"I don't think that's going to work."

Shit, thought Ronon. Sheppard, maybe five feet behind him.

"Just testing it out," he said.

Sheppard circled so that Ronon could see him. "Well, unless you really want to make a break for it, you should probably stop before someone else notices," Sheppard drawled. "And, like I said earlier – I'd like a little advance notice."

Whatever. "Where are McKay and Teyla?" he asked.

"Gone with Meah in the jumper to check out that settlement," he replied.

"Think they'll find Teyla's people?" he had to ask.

"In my experience, Missing In Action means dead after a week," said Sheppard.

"Yeah," said Ronon. "You going to tell her that?"

"No way in hell."

"I should have grabbed a blanket for you," said Sheppard, after a bit.

Ronon didn't think he'd been shaking. "I'm fine," he said.

"Right," said Sheppard. "'Course you are."

"Aren't you bored?"

"A little."

The sun was halfway to the horizon now. Two or three hours to dusk, then probably ten to twelve hours of dark, then a couple of hours after that, until whenever 'midmorning' was on Anaa. "Think they'd give me a break to piss?" he asked.

"Let me check," said Sheppard. He jogged out of Ronon's view, then came back a moment later. "Nope. They're into the degradation thing. Seems they prefer making inmates miserable to keeping them for long."

"Great."

"So, bring your legs together and let me get your pants down."

Ronon snorted. "Right, Sheppard, in your dreams."

"Shut up and do it," Sheppard replied. "Or should we wait until Teyla and Rodney get back?"

Put that way, there didn't seem to be any choice. He drew his legs close and followed Sheppard's instructions; a couple of minutes later, he felt a lot better.

Not much later, with a whoosh and a chorus of exclamations from the nearby Anaans, a jumper swooped over and landed maybe ten armspans in front of him. A moment later, McKay and Teyla, looking disappointed, trudged down the rear ramp. "Refugees from a plague somewhere. They think the plague's why they were forced to settle so far from town, even though they are all healthy," said McKay without preamble. "So – ready to head home?"

"No," said Ronon. "And, oh, watch the puddle."

"Then let's get you a blanket," said Teyla. "Rodney, please fetch a blanket from the jumper."

"Yes, sure," said McKay. "She's been like this all day. 'Rodney, stop shaking the ship. Rodney, please try not to land on the natives.' Nag, nag, nag."

With a blanket around his shoulders and his team for company, the evening wouldn't have been too bad except for the growing ache in his back.

The only Anaans who spoke with them were Meah and Asz. Soon after dark, they came with a basket of fresh bread and beer. "We are staying with aligned kin in town, and they wish to extend hospitality," Meah explained. "And Asz wants to see that you are suffering sufficiently."

"Trying to," said Ronon.

"Yes, because it's not enough that his whole planet was wiped out, and he spent seven years on the run from the Wraith, and the past three their worst enemy. No, he's got to do some time in retroactive juvie," said McKay.

"Rodney…" Sheppard warned, but neither Meah nor Asz asked why he'd been pursued by the Wraith.

Instead, Asz asked, "Are you from Hoff, then?"

"No, uh, Sateda," he answered. "You probably haven't heard of it. Not many people we've visited have."

"We were lucky," said Meah. "It was harvest time here, so none of our kin were on Hoff when it was destroyed."

"You mention Hoff frequently," said Sheppard. "Did a lot of trading with them?"

"I guess you could say they were our mentors and protectors. But they couldn't protect themselves," said Meah.

"What happened must have been devastating," said Teyla. "Did your people take their drug?"

"No," said Meah. "There were plans, I believe, but after the Wraith retaliated – our backward ways were our salvation."

"The Wraith did the same to Sateda?" Asz asked.

"Pretty much," said Ronon.

Asz turned and walked away.

"Please forgive him," said Meah. "Like many of our youth, he was crushed by the fall of Hoff. He lost almost all his former schoolmates, and much of his hope for the future. Now there's no easy escape for him from the ties of family and field."

* * *

A few hours later, Sheppard and Teyla convinced each other to go lie down in the jumper. Which left him McKay, and the occasional distant ring of a bell, for company.

"So, you going to do math at me?" Ronon asked.

"Would it help?" McKay asked. "I mean, I was once on this overnight train and I ended up teaching this girl math up to calculus, starting with the concept of positive integers."

"Calculus?"

"The area under curves."

"I did pretty good in math in school," said Ronon. "Took the hardest classes I could until I was drafted. Just haven't really had cause to use it."

"Well, okay, I didn't know that," said McKay.

"Just don't make me do any math on a sphere right now, or solve some set of equations. My head might explode."

"Can't have that," said McKay.

He paused, and Ronon thought he was probably solving some problem that had just occurred to him. So he was surprised when McKay said, "You know, I've been thinking about this all day, and I envy you. A bit, at least."

Ronon rolled his shoulders as best he could and felt bones grinding. "Yeah, right, McKay."

"What I mean is, by doing this, you're actually atoning for something. At first, I thought, well, if you think killing an animal for food is really bad, than what must you think about us from Earth? I mean, we've screwed up a few things big time, if you want my honest opinion."

"You've done a few things right, too," Ronon had to say. "Look at me. I'm alive."

"Yes, exactly! We did what we could to help you, because we could. And right now, you're – you're doing what you can, when you can. I don't need to understand your exact choice of methods to understand the impulse.

"And something else came to me just a little while ago, when Meah and that cousin or whatever brought us dinner," McKay continued. "There's a simplicity to what you did here when you killed that calf that makes confessing and accepting punishment possible. It's much easier to do that with youthful mistakes than with adult ones, because the ones we make as adults, that we don't address right away, really can't be fixed."

"I wasn't that young when I came here the first time."

"That's a matter of perspective," said McKay. "Anyway, what I realized earlier was, you're kind of plum out of youthful mistakes you can atone for. Someone like me, the list of missteps goes back to when I informed Mina Ferguson she was as homely as a potato because she got a better score on a math test in fifth grade than I did. And every now and then I can take some memory like that out and feel bad about it and think, if I ever see Mina again, I could be nice and charming and somehow make up for it."

"Watch her be gorgeous, McKay."

"Not likely. But my point is, if I leave stuff like that hanging, then it's okay that I leave other things hanging too, because the list is just so damn long.

"But you don't have a list of living, breathing people you've been awful to, do you?"

Ronon closed his eyes and concentrated on the acute pain that was developing in his lower back. "You know that time you taught math to that girl all night? How about you tell me what you did," he said.

* * *

A few hours later, Teyla came out of the jumper and relieved McKay.

"Still mad at me?" Ronon asked.

Teyla shook her head as she settled into the portable chair McKay had abandoned. "We all have reasons for our actions," she said. "What you are doing here is driven by your sense of honor, and I really should have expected nothing less."

"You think I'm honorable? After Kell?"

"I asked that you never use me like that again, and you have not," said Teyla. "And – if we had known each other better, I believe things would have gone differently. So, yes, I believe you are as honorable a man as any I have ever known, Ronon Dex."

Ronon ducked his head so that Teyla wouldn't see his smile, then looked to make sure the jumper's rear hatch was closed.

How would McKay phrase this? "Hey, what about me?" he said, trying to imitate the way McKay seemed to talk with just the front of his mouth.

"Rod-ney," said Teyla, drawing out the syllables in a voice pitched to match Sheppard's.

Ronon chuckled.

"Do you mind if I sing?" asked Teyla.

"No, that'd be nice," he answered.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

A couple of hours before dawn Sheppard emerged and sent Teyla back to bed.

"Who set the watch schedule?" Ronon asked. "Am I going to get McKay again?"

"We didn't talk about it," said Sheppard. "We're all winging everything on this planet."

Sheppard seemed content to sprawl on a portable chair and stare into the darkness, and Ronon finally felt himself drift into near-sleep.

He was jerked, painfully, to full alertness by… something. Whatever it was, it was beyond where he could see, even pressing the back of his head into the stock's upper plank. "Sheppard?"

"I hear it too," Sheppard said, and Ronon saw that, though he was still seated, he had his P90 in his left hand.

"Hey, you there," Sheppard called into the hazy pre-dawn. "We don't bite."

"Actually, you do," came the answer. Asz Ahsland approached, shoulders back, trying to look bold.

"What's up?" Sheppard asked. "Bit early for a stroll, isn't it?"

"I wanted to see if his family had deserted him."

"Not likely," said Sheppard.

"Then why'd he have to kill our morro? Where were you then?"

"We kind of adopted him later."

Asz nodded. "Just keep him out of trouble."

"We'll try."

* * *

Just after dawn, McKay and Teyla joined them. Teyla hand-fed him a power bar and tipped up a water bottle for him, but he only drank a little, just enough to wash the bar down.

"You'd think, with all the bells, they'd be ringing time of day," said McKay.

"They seem to use them almost solely for personal communication," said Teyla.

"And as a backdrop to official pronouncements," said Sheppard.

Listening to Sheppard, McKay, and Teyla talk about the Anaan bell-ringing thing took maybe 20 minutes. Maybe less, maybe more.

"How high's the sun?" he finally couldn't help asking.

"Um – units?" asked Rodney.

"Won't be long," said Sheppard.

"Think they'd mind if you broke me out?"

"Probably not deeply, but it could still make trouble."

The minutes dragged.

And then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, the upper plank was gone, removed by the two men he'd first encountered at the entrance to town the previous day. He hadn't even sensed their approach.

He stood up – except, he didn't; but Sheppard was under one arm, McKay the other, so it didn't seem to matter, just this once.

"Thank you for your hospitality," he heard Teyla say, though whether it was to one person or a hundred he didn't know. "Please, as I asked before – if you hear anything of my people, please contact Meah Ahsland, or the Ahslanders of Pristim Vine."

Then they were at the jumper; he stopped moving his feet and shook free of Sheppard and McKay, then raised his arms and grasped the top of the jumper's rear opening. He arched forward and his back cracked in more places than he cared to count.

"Don't **do** that!" said McKay. "We have a genuine chiropractor at home; let's leave her a back to work with, shall we?"

He let McKay guide him to the bench, where he stretched full-length and closed his eyes.

They'd been on Anaa just about a full day; they'd achieved nothing, and he supposed when he got back he was going to have an uncomfortable conversation with Carter.

But maybe the Ahslanders were a little less fearful of raiders coming through the gate now. Anyway, he'd done what he could.

THE END

Oh yeah, and I know that the contraption that held Ronon was, technically, a pillory; but John didn't.

Feedback of any kind, in any form, is welcomed, here or to helenw at murphnet dot org.


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